I looked at her. “It hurts,” I admitted, blinking the tears away.
Morgan pulled me close and we hugged for a little bit. After the hug finished, we shared a short kiss. Morgan softly chuckled. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? You get maybe the one girl in the school that’s cool with you doing stuff with her hot friend, and it all goes to shit. That’s Taylor for you.”
I collected my thoughts for a bit. “I miss her, but if I’m being honest, I’d rather have just you. She’s too complicated, and you… with you, it feels like everything I’ve been missing in my life floods back to me with every second we spend together.”
Morgan gave an uncharacteristic smile. “Holy shit, Quinn, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said in an unusually high voice. She kissed me over and over again, clearly overwhelmed with what I said.
I had no idea why she reacted so strongly to that of all things. Clearly my social skills still needed sharpening.
***
“Boom!” Lexi celebrated as the ball took down all nine pins. She turned back to the group. “Eat my entire ass!”
“You granny-bowl,” Crystal dismissed her. “I could get a zero and still win.”
“Points are points!” Lexi protested, sitting back down, snuggling up to me. “Back me up here, Quinn.”
I shot Morgan a look. I wanted to be as impartial as possible towards Lexi after knowing what I knew, but I think Lexi took the fact I didn’t fully shoot her down a little too optimistically. Unhelpfully, Morgan just looked on coolly.
“You two make a cute couple,” she chirped as Milo stood up, his turn approaching. He did his ceremonial dance, grabbed his favorite blue ball, and tossed it down the aisle with the grace of a seasoned professional. Instant gutterball, no points.
“I swear to God I’m good at bowling,” he mumbled as he sat back down. He saw Lexi plastered to me and his expression turned to annoyance. “Can you cut that out? He’s in a relationship.”
“With me, yeah,” Morgan replied emotionlessly, turning to him. “I’m cool with it. Got something to say?”
He stared at her for a long time before his expression softened. “Sorry,” he admitted. “I guess the competition is getting to me.”
“The loser just buys the wings, it’s not like you’re not playing for the Nationals,” Crystal laughed.
“Is there a national bowling team…?” Lexi wondered, still snuggled up against me.
“Alright, give me some room, I’m getting too hot,” I told her, trying to keep some humor to my tone.
“Yeah you are,” Lexi giggled back sexually.
“Lexi,” I replied with some heat, and she moved off. I gave Morgan another look before she got up and grabbed a ball. I turned to Milo and figured a change of conversation was in order. “How are things, you okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he assured me — or himself. “Just a lot going on.”
I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be genuine. “For what it’s worth… I’m glad we’re talking again.”
He gave me a side eye, then eyed Lexi, then back to me. I rolled my eyes and did my best to tell him with my expression that whatever he was feeling about the Lexi situation, I was feeling it too.
Unhelpfully, despite zero attraction being present between us, Crystal was beginning to learn she could tease Morgan with me too. Anytime that Lexi grabbed on to one side, Crystal would jokingly grab on to the other, just in time for Morgan to turn around from whatever she was doing or whatever.
“Spare, more like ‘spare me,'” Morgan mumbled, turning around to see Lexi latched back onto me, with Crystal’s head on my shoulder. “Boy, you two really want to see me jealous, don’t you?”
I was honestly more worried about what this was doing to Milo than Morgan, especially since Crystal and Lexi didn’t know exactly what flames they were stoking here. Milo and I clearly made some kind of peace, but… it was an uneasy peace.
After the first game, the girls all went to the washroom, which just left Milo and myself. He clearly took the opportunity, and as soon as they were gone, leaned over to me.
“I don’t know either,” I preemptively told him. “I know what it looks like, and we didn’t plan this, and there’s nothing going on there. Lexi is just Lexi, and Crystal likes teasing Morgan. I do really feel bad about what you’ve told me, and… and I know, okay? Please, just… please.”
I stared down at the floor for a bit, then looked at Milo, who was just viewing me with a smug yet weirded out smile. “I was going to ask you to pass the chips.”
“Oh.” My cheeks got hot. “Uh, yeah, here you go.”
“It seems to be affecting you more than me at this point,” he observed. “I thought we were behind that stuff now, but you’re holding a grudge.”
“I bet Joel is holding a grudge too,” I defended myself.
“See? It affects you,” he replied, cool as a cucumber.
“So it doesn’t bother you when Lexi and Crystal do their… thing?” I asked.
“Why would it? Both of them are single, Crystal is clearly doing it for a joke, and your girlfriend is right there,” he reasoned. “It’s like you think I only told Joel to punish you.”
“But I-”
“Quinn, we really shouldn’t be having this argument here,” he interrupted. “If you still have hangups… give me your phone. I’ll give you my number, you can text me or call me or whatever. In private. Okay?”
“I don’t think I should,” I replied uneasily.
“Well, you’re my friend, so I’ll give you my number anyway,” he replied warmly. “How’s that?”
“Okay…” I replied slowly. “Okay. Friend. I like that.”
“Can I be gross?” he asked.
“Uh… sure?”
“This group is like a case of irritable bowel syndrome. Shit passes right through us, it could happen anytime with no warning, and the only thing we all can do is live with it.” He gave me a playful shove. “If I didn’t enjoy spending time with you, I wouldn’t be hanging out with you.”
“I don’t get how you can say that after-”
“Text me, Quinn,” he reminded me.
“No, but, this doesn’t, like, it does not compute. You seemed angry with me, now it’s like nothing happened.”
“Yeah, after a whole week. Imagine that,” he quipped. “I can pretend to be angry with you if that helps. I just felt a way, and now I’ve gone back to feeling my normal way. The event has passed. The feelings have passed. If you’re talking about what I said to Lexi, that’s just me keeping her behavior in check. I do it all the time with her. Ever since middle school, in fact.”
“I guess… I guess I feel things deeply.”
He took a swig of his soda. “That’s gotta suck in this group.”
I chuckled. “You’re telling me.”
“Well, okay. Quinn, I didn’t mean anything by it. People were told, but to me, that had to happen. I don’t want it to affect how I see you, is that good enough?”
“Well, now Taylor won’t bother being in the same place as me…” I trailed off. “It hurts.”
“Yeah, but, that’s not my fault. Taylor was planning on cutting things off with you for a bit. I didn’t only approach you, you know.”
“What?!” I asked in disbelief. Taylor definitely never told me this! What else was she hiding from me? “What did she say? Tell me everything!”
Milo sighed. “It’s great how I told you I’d rather call you about this, and you just ignored me.” He glanced at the washrooms and leaned in to me. “Okay. You know about the party at the Love’s place?”